How your 20’s feel when the world is burning
By Rodrigo Ferriera
Hi there, my name is Rodrigo and I'm still a student. Which by the way is a great feeling. To be young and have the whole world in front of me. But at the same time what world do we have in front of us? Is it something pleasant to live in? Let me say it, the planet is obviously beautiful; but everything happening around it feels deeply wrong. I know I'm being confusing. Let me start from the beginning.
So I'm 22 and always knew that I needed to do something in my life that includes talking. A lot. Specially if it's about things that actually matter. The problem is that lately, fewer and fewer people seem to want to talk about those things. Or if they do, they don't want an actual conversation — they want a fight, want to shout, to yell, to search for something to be right about. There's still another group of people: the ones that want to communicate but they are just not sure if anyone is listening. So in my opinion we have a problem. How can we search for proper dialogues if people are not open to them? We need to do something different.
Disclaimer: This image was generate with the help of AI.
Starting with something simple — let’s ask a question. A simple but provocative question. If I could change three things in the world, what would they be? It's a world of answers and the good thing about this question is: there is no right answer. At least I see it that way. There's no agenda into it. So let's think about it: the world is messed up, polarisation took place over what should be one of the bridges for our society — so we could obviously point to politics as a problem, something that we would want to change. Also about politics, let's talk about bureaucracies — so many of them for simple and necessary things in our society. How can we keep track of all of them? Yes, I'm basically thinking out loud here. Politics, bureaucracies — can we say peace now? At the time I'm writing this there are, at least, 28 active conflicts happening. No, it's not just the war in Ukraine or in Gaza — it's everywhere. From a rise in criminal violence, to civil wars, disputes for territory, transnational and state terrorism and the famous political instabilities. Everyone wants peace and no conflicts, so how did we get here?
Still have the power to change one more thing. In a world manipulated by hunger for power and money — there's actual hunger too. In 2026, 673 million people live with chronic hunger. Let that number sit for a second. We have the resources. We have the knowledge. We just don't have the will. Armed conflicts destroy agricultural production, halt trade and displace families. Climate change — something that some administrations still say is not happening — leads to unpredictable weather patterns, droughts and flooding that disproportionately affect vulnerable farming communities. And on top of all of that, economic inequality does the rest. What are we doing?
I was in Groningen, in the Netherlands, for ten days. Beautiful city, let me say. I tried to test out what people would say when asked the same question. Just like that, walking in the streets, in a cafe or pub, in student residences — just to see how people would react. It's not something we see often. It's not like those trends offering people money just to interact with them. No agenda, no right answers, just the feeling that we can actually do more. I wanted to know if people still cared. Wanted to know if the worst thing about the world right now is the problems themselves or the fact that people have stopped believing those problems can be solved.
Here's what surprised me. Nobody shrugged. Nobody said "I don't know" and just walked away. Every person thought about it, and even if they seemed a little uncertain about what to say, they answered. Honestly. Opinions about equality — not just equal pay or equal rights (though those too) — but the feeling that some lives are still valued more than others. That where we are born, what we look like and how much money we have still defines and decides almost everything about our future. This is still a debate in 2026. The pure hate against the other is still a problem in our societies. People pointed out that this old instinct has been rising again, and it is exhausting — the feeling that there are human beings living in fear. Could you live in fear?
Another answer that resonated with me was education. A few people pointed out that education is something that can improve. A lot. In the sense that education is not just what happens in a classroom. School is part of it too — but nobody there taught us how to navigate a world full of misinformation. It is also about learning how to treat people. How to disagree without destroying. How to think critically about what you're told. How to be a proper person in a world full of other people. And somewhere along the way we stopped learning and teaching those parts. I personally think that gap — between academic education and human education — is one of the most dangerous things nobody is talking about. We live in a world that produces highly qualified people who don't know how to listen. Experts who can't empathise.
I'll be honest with you. I'm part of No To Apathy not just because I like to talk — also because I was part of the problem. Not in the sense of me being apathetic. But because I could see the world getting louder and emptier at the same time. A lot of noise, more anger and less conversation. And I stood still.
Not just in Groningen but anywhere that I personally engage with people — it doesn't fix any frustration or find a solution to all those problems — but it reminds me of something. It reminds me that people care. Genuinely and deeply. Even the ones that look like they don't, or the ones who say they've given up. I'm tired of performing and seeing people performing. We're living in a world full of people just living a lot of lives at once, lives that don't belong to their ideology or soul. When we ask someone a real question and actually wait for an answer — with no rush and no desire to look for some right response — they stop performing. And suddenly a good conversation is created.
If I asked you right now: "If you could change three things in the world — what would they be?" — what would you say?
I'm genuinely asking. I truly believe the most powerful thing we can do in a world full of loud noise is to talk clearly and make someone feel heard and seen.
And that's where it all starts.
*No To Apathy is a movement built on the belief that people care more than it sometimes seems and the power of the individual.
